


They'll Be Here When You're Done

by a tattered rose (atr)



Category: Being Erica
Genre: F/M, not exactly romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 04:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atr/pseuds/a%20tattered%20rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after she becomes a Doctor, Dr. Arthur offers Erica the opportunity to help Dr. Tom.  But in order to succeed, they both must take a leap of faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They'll Be Here When You're Done

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idea_of_sarcasm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idea_of_sarcasm/gifts).



> I fell in love with your prompt, and started this before story reveal. It's a small enough fandom that I don't want to step on any toes, but I took a different enough direction that I hope I'll be excused.
> 
> This is giftwrapped with your implicit "there's not enough fic!" clause, in case it doesn't work out.

It was a _ting_ in her head, or maybe more of a _whoosh._ All she ever knew for sure was that it would happen, thread through her dreams and leave her wide-eyed and awake.

 

Therapy waited for no man (or woman), and it was time for a session.

 

Erica swung her legs out of bed, reaching for the light pink robe that matched her nightie, even though it was only a few steps to the nearest door – and thus to her Group room. Her Group, not her office, and she felt the echoed mutterings as her patients awoke as well.

 

Adam murmured behind her, flipping over and searching her pillow with one hand. She leaned over with a smile, shushing him with a quick kiss on the lips. "Just a session, I'll be back soon, I hope." The sentence wasn't even finished when he rolled back over, asleep once more.

 

They'd been together for almost four years, and they both knew they were forever. Their conversations had tickled at the edge of the "marriage" subject, especially in conjunction with the "kids" topic. She knew he was waiting until she was in a solid place with Therapy, and could step back from the intense hours she was putting in to expand 50/50 out of Goblins, and into a new space which could hold their six new hires. They had twelve editors now, and a complement of support staff.

 

She also knew he had already bought the ring.

 

Life was good.

 

In the doorway she snapped into her favourite breezy blouse and a flippy skirt. It was always late spring here, or maybe it was early fall. Warm and bright, with the periodic kick of a chill slice of wind.

 

Smiling inside, she took a deep breath of the honey-soaked air, and glanced around at four empty chairs.

 

"Wait, _where-_ " she asked the room, still searching visually even as she reached out her "Doctor Sense" to check on her missing patients.

 

"They'll be here when you're done." The voice came from behind her, startling her heart, and she whirled to find Doctor Arthur standing in front of her door.

 

She'd met him once, and only once. Like a zen Santa Claus he had been waiting for her in her office, a little over a year into her new role, and asked what sort of life she wanted to have. Not in so many words, of course; they talked about how her patient load was going, what her first Group would mean. Logistics and paperwork, basically, though it felt more like an evaluation.

 

"Are they... okay? Are they back asleep or can they just not get in-"

 

"They won't notice a thing. For them, they'll respond to the call, and the session will begin like always." He walked towards the nearest chair as he spoke, dragging it nearer to its neighbor. "Would you care to sit?"

 

"Thank you," she responded, as if this was his room, and she was his guest. "If you don't mind me asking, what is this about?" The memory of an … interesting … session with one of her more unruly patients knocked and smirked. "Unless I'm in trouble?"

 

He watched her, eyes squinted. "No, no, nothing like that. I know Naadiah would normally be talking with you, but she has never agreed, or rather approved, of this situation."

 

"What situation?" That he wasn't just telling her what it was was making her worry, the confusion quickening her breath. "Is everyone alright? Is someone, is it my-"

 

"Erica, this is about Tom."

 

She froze, heart stopped for a second before it restarted in double-time. She hadn't seen Dr. Tom since, well since she'd become a Doctor. And what had been a horrifically painful but satisfying goodbye had quickly spiraled into a burning ache of loss. There was so much she wanted to tell him, every success and every failure a reminder that he was gone.

 

Happy, out living his life. But gone from hers.

 

"What about him?" She was surprised at how level her voice came out. It was something that had come recently, this ability to point the way for her Patients, and noticing finally that she herself was beginning to implement those lessons, gradually, into her own personality.

 

It had taken six years to get here, but every day was another step on the journey.

 

Dr. Arthur crossed his legs, leaning back and lacing his fingers over his stomach. He was the picture of relaxation, but for the concern in his face. "He needs to see you."

 

The response was automatic. "But we _can't_ see each other. Never again, not since-" She felt the tears well up as the memory surfaced, and rolled through her tricks, licking her lips and biting her tongue, eyes up as she forced her mouth back to neural.

 

Dr. Arthur waited for her.

 

"Not since he retired."

  
"And that's true. He couldn't. Neither of you could, that's just how Therapy works." Another tiny snippet of the Big Picture. "But this will be okay." He leaned forwards towards her, eyes boring into hers.

 

"Erica, Tom needs you, but this isn't going to be easy. And there are things you will learn that you can never unlearn. No one will blame you if you don't want to do it. We can take care of him another way."

 

Resolve strengthened her, made her less the directionless woman she had been, and more like the confident businesswoman she was becoming.

 

"Of course, yes, of course I want to. Dr. Tom gave me so much, if he needs me, I want to help him, any way I can."

 

"That's good." Dr. Arthur smiled, and it felt as though she'd taken a test, and passed. "But two things. Firstly," he held up one finger "whatever happens, you'll be safe. _Whatever you might do._ And secondly," his tone became lighter, almost amused, "you're a Doctor yourself now. You should probably start thinking of him just as 'Tom.'"

 

She'd opened her mouth to ask why Dr. Tom never referred to Dr. Naadiah by her first name, but was already _whooshing_ into Dr. Arthur's dark eyes.

 

~*

 

She was standing on pebbles, staring at a wall, and had absolutely no idea where she was. Or where Dr. Tom was. But when she started to look around, it was familiar and bittersweet. Copper-rust bands underlined a cityscape, blown up skyline so familiar, even though she had seen it from this perspective only once before.

 

"Dr. Tom?" she whispered, praying he would walk up behind her, and not that she would find him back on the rooftop's edge.

 

One or twice a year she dreamed about it still, reaching out to empty air as he dropped over the side. After those dreams she knew she could do better, rehearsed speeches that would work, that would make him change his mind. They took different shapes, clever path of quotes, logical analysis, promises that she was an angel, and it was never too late.

 

They worked in her head, but here, alone on the roof, she wasn't ready, wasn't sure of anything.

 

She edged around the elevator structure, peeking out slowly.

 

And breathed out in relief.

 

He was standing at the edge, but not sitting. He was in the right place, but it wasn't the Tom lost and giving up. It was _her_ Tom, familiar long black coat flapping in the breeze, swept-back hair only a little more gray than she remembered.

 

"Dr. Tom!" She ran towards him, happy she was in flats, and he turned around.

 

When she was close enough to see his face she stopped short, skidding slightly to scuff a bare streak of roof. He looked confused, lost, at a loss. It was an expression she'd seen on him only a handful of times before, and each of those times she knew what was wrong, what clash of Therapy had given rise to an unsolvable problem. How to forget a death sentence. How to apologize. How to deal when Real Life came knocking.

  
She thought she knew more about him now than she did while they still met. Worlds of meaning she never noticed until she searched her memory, stitching fragments of conversation to moments of contact into a portrait of the man who wasn't just her Therapist.

  
"What's wrong?"

  
He was too close to the fall and she was back on her first plan: get him away from the edge, keep him safe, stop the rising panic and hold on until it was all okay.

 

Without answering he turned away, resuming his search of the sky, or maybe it was the sky reflected on the walls of glass which caught his attention. Forever walls, showing you the world but keeping you inside.

 

Hair was blowing across her face, wind catching under her skirt. She was all alone, and she didn't know what she was supposed to do.

 

"Dr. Tom?" She inched up beside him, not looking down.

 

"Not anymore." He didn't look at her, and his voice was hollow, empty. "Not for years."

 

There was a time when Dr. Tom, a _different_ Dr. Tom, would walk up behind her, or spin her away for a minute. Always at the right time, whether it felt too late, or too early. There was a time when she was forced into his past, led and tricked. Dr. Naadiah was behind her, and Dr. Tom... It was because he was there, as much as anything, that she could run straight to his former self. Tom.

 

She trusted him. She always had. She always would.

 

He wouldn't be helping her out of this one.

 

"Tom?" His name sounded bare, and again she was back in that surreal trip, when latching on to an appropriate thing to call him was the least of her concerns.

 

"Erica."

 

"What... What are you doing here?" His lack of reaction was scaring her.

 

He paused, and just before she thought he wasn't going to answer: "I've _always_ been here," his voice breaking and she broke with him.

 

"You haven't. You didn't jump. You became a Therapist. You became _my_ Therapist."

 

There was no noise, she noticed. Nothing but the wind, the rustle of clothing, the scratch of pebbles when she shifted her weight.

 

"You became Dr. Tom."

 

He turned his head to look at her, eyes heavy. "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. Lao Tzu." There was life in his voice, just barely, something in him trying to reach out.

 

She wasn't sure how to reach back.

 

"You did. You're not that man anymore. I met him, you're not like him." But that was untrue. There was so much of Dr. Tom in his younger self, and she'd seen first hand what happened when the sad, angry, bitter Tom resurfaced.

 

"Yes," he said sadly, offering her a small smile, "I am."

 

When 50/50 began publishing fiction, Erica had learned many lessons. Fiction wasn't just an enjoyable read, but a clever crafting of words and sentences, flow and rhythm. Cause led to effect, effect became cause. Dialogue failed when one character gave nothing back. Momentum withered and died, with nowhere to go.

 

"Dr. T- Tom. What's happening?" She asked the bald question. Something she never would have done before she was "ready."

 

He turned towards her then, as if she'd said the magic word. He did look the same, almost the same, tired and sad but she could believe it would all be okay, as long as she could believe that nothing real had changed. They were still who they were, they still had what they had. They were special to each other, no matter what the rule books said.

 

An inhale chocked in his throat, and he surprised her by catching her hand, holding it loosely engulfed in his own. Cool, dry skin reassuringly firm and real. An anchor less weighing them down than tying them together. She held on, in case he tried to let go.

 

He searched her face for a long time, and she waited until he was ready. Another lesson learned long ago, embraced only recently. "Why are you here?"

 

That one, at least, she could answer. "Dr. Arthur said you..." _needed_ felt like too much, this didn't feel like the old _them_ , and she didn't know who they'd become." He said you could use my help."

 

His laughter spun in the breeze, low and loud and sarcastic, trace echoes adding a hollow pain. Laughter. Something else she'd only heard from him once, when once had to be enough. A lifetime of lost friendship condensed into one conversation that had been all at once too short and too long. Everything important said in a moment, everything they could have been left out. But having agreed to move on, it had been the perfect length. Enough to remember, little enough to keep their resolve.

 

"Thank you Erica." He squeezed her hand as his voice, for the first time, held warmth. "But you can't help me." It wasn't just her, he remembered too, she knew. Right now he was remembering another conversation, so similar, on this very roof. "Not this time." He amended, rueful words belied by the softness in his eyes.

 

She didn't know she was crying until a tear rolled down her cheek. "But why not? If Dr. Arthur sent me, he has to believe there's something I can do. You taught me never to give up, there's always something you can do."

 

"Not this time." The shake of his head was. "Erica, I'm-" He broke off, staring down at the rooftop. "It's not a matter of convincing me to come back, or not jump, or, or anything else. This is where I am, this is where I've always been. Where I'll always be."

 

Dropping her hand, he stepped back to the edge, closer than before, and spoke to the view. "I'm dead, Erica..."

 

There were words after that, she heard the buzz of his voice, but nothing more. He couldn't be dead, she would have heard. She wasn't allowed to see him, but she would have known. Someone would have told her. She'd have to know. For Sarah. Sarah would need help if her father died, and Erica would be the one to help. So she'd have to know, or someone would have told her, but she didn't know. She didn't know, so he couldn't be dead.

 

Her thoughts had rounded out when she was woken from her thoughts by a finger tilting her chin up. Dr. Tom was blurry and her cheeks were cold, colder every time a rush of air sliced moisture from her skin.

 

"You're not," she whispered, and bit her tongue.

 

"It's okay."

 

What was okay, he didn't specify, but since _nothing_ felt okay, it didn't really matter. She stifled a sob, almost successful and his fingers spread along her jaw, aborted caress when he suddenly dropped his hand.

 

"Everyone dies sometime, Erica."

 

She licked her lips and looked to the sky, deep breaths in and out.

 

He gave her a moment, talking over her ragged breathing. "No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow. Euripides."

 

"So what," she began, when she felt somewhat under control. "What am I here for?"

 

"I don't know." He was smiling but he was also crying, single tear already forging a path towards the ground. "A last goodbye?" One step away from the drop and he was in front of her again. "I did want to see you."

 

She wanted to throw herself into his arms.

 

"A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies. Gustave Flaubert." Quotes weren't her thing, she didn't use them more often than anyone else. But she lived every day with the kernels of wisdom Dr. Tom had passed on to her texturing her walls and windows. Not his words, but his voice spoke to her from every letter. They made her look, to think, to write down the odd sentence, startling idea. Words he might have shared, and words that made her feel like he was close by, watching over her.

 

His voice was gentle. "Goodbye Erica." He reached out to gather her into his arms _for the very last time, for the second time. Only ever at the end._ "I know you'll be fine-"

 

"No!." Her shout echoed, magnified as it bounced in an acoustic drum. Jumping back from his outstretched arms she knew she was hurting him, but it was more important to stop his goodbye. This wasn't goodbye, it wasn't over yet. Dr. Arthur wouldn't sent her for this, not to leave Dr- not to leave _Tom_ standing on the edge of a building for the rest of eternity.

 

"I'm not leaving you here!" A little hysteria in her voice, admittedly.

 

"Erica-"

 

"You don't have to stay here. You're not _supposed_ to stay here!"

 

"Erica-"

 

"You can move on. You _have_ to move on." She just had to make him _understand._

 

"Erica, where would I go?" he asked gently, turning her to look out over the rooftop.

 

There were no doors, no railings leading down a fire escape.

 

"Leo. I saw Leo, after he was – Dr. Naadiah sent me to see him, and he was stuck in a hallway, full of doors to all the moments in his life." She spoke quickly, urgently. "All he needed was to go through one door, into the light, and he could stop living in the past and move on. He was just stuck."

 

"It's not the same."

 

"Yes, it is." She'd fought to help Kai, and now she was fighting to help him. If only he would let her. They could figure it out, together. There had to be a way, or Dr. Arthur wouldn't have sent her here.

 

The crunch of footsteps move past her, a small victory in and of itself. "Alright. Then what is it you think I'm meant to do here? There's nothing, no options."

 

She trekked past him, critical gaze covering every inch of the rooftop as she paced the perimeter, poking and kicking, Dr. Tom following a step behind. Tom was following her. She pinned the thought into her mind, repeated the name sans honorific over and over until it began to feel natural to think of him that way. Tom. Tom. Tom.

 

There was nothing, no doors, not even a keyhole. After the second circuit she admitted defeat, and faced him in puzzlement. His expression was light, eyes softly amused. It was all ground he had walked before.

 

She spun slowly, following the rim of blue-green, and she had it.

 

There was purpose in her stride as she returned to the spot where she had found him. The place where he always was.

 

When she got near the edge she continued, balancing carefully as she stepped onto the low wall.

 

He moved fast, grabbing her wrist hard enough to bruise and pulling her into his arms. "What are you doing?" Through their clothing she could feel the alarm and fear pounding in his chest. He didn't let her go when she squirmed, as if he thought she would fling herself off.

 

"It's the way out," she replied, simply.

 

"What is?" He relaxed his hold just enough to let her turn around, keeping hold of her arm.

 

"Don't you see? It's the only way off the roof." He didn't see it, not yet. "In 1999 you were afraid, you wanted to jump because living terrified you. Which is why you needed to turn around, go down the stairs, and keep _trying._ " She thought she knew him, but she hadn't _understood_ him, not until this moment. "Now you're here because you're afraid again. Afraid to leave this emptiness and jump into the unknown. It terrifies you. And that's why you have to do it."

 

Her tears were still drying but no new ones were following. She could feel herself burning, the desire to help him stronger than she had felt with any of her patients. He'd helped her so much.

 

There were tears in his eyes, and she knew it was because he was afraid. At least this time, he wasn't afraid to let her see it.

 

"I can't."

 

"You have to. Sooner or later. You have to take the leap..." She trailed off when her own argument brought her back to Dr. Arthur's other advice. _Whatever you might do... you'll be safe._ "A leap of faith," she finished, with dawning wonder.

 

She stepped back towards the edge but he tightened his grip.

 

Maybe Dr. Arthur had already given her all the clues she needed.

 

"Tom."

 

His eyes widened, head tilting in question.

 

"It's okay."

 

He was waiting.

 

"We'll do it together."

 

"You can't. You have to go back." But he didn't break eye contact and he didn't let her go.

 

"Nothing can hurt me here, Dr. Arthur promised. I'm here for you." All he had to do was accept it. "Please, Tom. I can't live knowing you're still here." She gestured around them, as far as their proximity would allow.

 

His head tilted forwards a fraction. Sometimes life had to move fast. Sometimes drawing out the moment only caused more pain, when everything that needed to be said had been said.

 

She inched closer, until they were a breath apart. "I'll stay here forever if I have to."

 

They both knew she meant it.

 

He nodded his assent, eyes tightly shut as he let her go.

 

She took his hand, let him step onto the ledge first, and pull her up beside him. It was terrifying, and even though she knew this was right, she wanted to turn and run. The wind was tearing at her, and every accidental peek downwards in vertigo, the only thing keeping her standing was the solidness of Tom beside her, and the firm grasp of his hand.

 

"Ready?" he asked, roughly.

 

She nodded. She'd helped him get this far, but the next step, literally, had to be his.

 

He jumped, and she jumped too.

 

A leap of faith.


End file.
